Microsoft and Facebook Building Underwater Transatlantic 'MAREA' Data Cable (betanews.com) 64
An anonymous reader writes: On Thursday, Microsoft and Facebook announced a partnership to build a transatlantic subsea data cable. Called 'MAREA' (Editor's note: it is Spanish for "tide"), it will connect the United States to Europe. More specifically, it will connect the State of Virginia to the country of Spain. The project will begin this August, with a targeted completion date of October 2017.Microsoft says: "MAREA will be the highest-capacity subsea cable to ever cross the Atlantic -- featuring eight fiber pairs and an initial estimated design capacity of 160Tbps. The new 6,600 km submarine cable system, to be operated and managed by Telxius, will also be the first to connect the United States to southern Europe: from Virginia Beach, Virginia to Bilbao, Spain and then beyond to network hubs in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. This route is south of existing transatlantic cable systems that primarily land in the New York/New Jersey region. Being physically separate from these other cables helps ensure more resilient and reliable connections for our customers in the United States, Europe, and beyond."
The fact that these two giants felt the need to have their own cables indicates how much data they intend to move. Wired has an in-depth piece on it (though the publication blocks users with adblockers).
The fact that these two giants felt the need to have their own cables indicates how much data they intend to move. Wired has an in-depth piece on it (though the publication blocks users with adblockers).
adblock filter to stop them from stopping you (Score:5, Informative)
xxhttp://www.wired.com/assets/load?scripts=true&c=1&load%5B%5D=jquery-sonar,wpcom-lazy-load-images,outbrain,blockadblock,tracking,ads,wired,wp-embed&ver=1464209915
(remove first 2 'x' chars from edited url)
you know, bloggers, you cannot stop us. if we want to block ads, we will.
oh, and FUCK YOU very much.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't know what's up with Wired, but I was able to read the article just fine (using uBlock Origin and Ghostery).
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To illustrate the problem (Score:5, Informative)
For those without ad blocking and wondering what the fuss is about. Wired wants to run all of these scripts from external parties, and many of them are designed to track your movements on the internet (from uMatrix; quotes added to prevent active links).
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"http://static.parsely.com/p.js"
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"https://subscribe.wired.com/ams/page-ads.js?ad_category_prefix=2016&browser_path=%2F2016%2F05%2Ffacebook-microsoft-laying-giant-cable-across-atlantic%2F&cat_prefixes=%2C2016%2C05%2Cfacebook-microsoft-laying-giant-cable-across-atlantic
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This does not look like an invitation for romantic love-making — the sex will be forceful and against the recipient's will...
Why do you hate them so much? If you like their content enough to bother tuning your ad-blocker, you are supposed to thank them, not curse them...
Reminds me of the attitude towards movie-studios and musicians — they are shitheads, and their content is shit, but people still want it. Want it badly enough to complain on Slashdot, when they can't
Tide or sick? (Score:2)
Doesn't marea also mean feeling sick, like you are going to throw up, in Spanish?
Re:Tide or sick? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Tide or sick? (Score:3)
Looks like they both have a common root - "sea". As in "undersea cable" and "sea of barf".
How much of this is about data (Score:5, Insightful)
and how much of this is about security.
It wasn't all that long ago we found out that the US and UK governments had tapped into the current Atlantic cables in order to spy. I presume that this new cable isn't going to hosting public traffic, just what those two companies and anyone who pays them send down them. If a government was attempt to tap into it, not only would it probably be fairly easy to detect but it'd also cause some actionable litigation. Which would be the last thing any spy would want to come to light.
Conversely, who knows what hoops they had to hop through in order to get this project off the ground. Would it surprise anyone if there was some governing language which says "you have to let us tap" no matter who owns the cable?
you THINK I make JOEK??!!1 (Score:2)
Also, in case TRUMP/HILLARY gets into office.
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What will that really get them? Most any place with enough infrastructure and rule of law to run a datacenter at that scale is also vulnerable to the NSA indirectly through the local security services, outright black ops or vulnerable to the kind diplomatic pressure that would give the NSA carte blanche.
Fucking Switzerland caved on bank secrecy -- and that was SWITZERLAND and BANK SECRECY. The rest of Western Europe lacks neither the stated neutrality nor the tradition to stop them.
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Well. Since MS and Facebook have customers in many, many countries, they already have data centers in many countries. Azure has been building data centers everywhere.
Thing is, they're not going to close the US ones. They're just going to offer the option for future growth to be local.
I do agree that the privacy snafus have made it hard to host everything in the US. Even Canada doesn't want their data in the US. We're actually considering putting Canadian data in the EU data centers.
Yes, they care more
Already plenty lands in the UK (Score:2)
So it does make sense to land elsewhere. Honest...
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The major carriers collude with the US and UK and allow them to just connect directly into the 10GigE payloads as they come out of the equipment in the landing stations. Nothing but commodity network equipment involved. Theoretically FB and MS could prevent that if they own the cable.
Privacy Concern (Score:5, Insightful)
Both companies are known for their data collection/mining of their user base, so this concerns me a bit. I know the article says the cable will be managed by Telxius but I wonder how much influence Microsoft and Facebook will have over that management? They are calling the cable "open" but they proceed to speak about how much benefit it will be to the Azure platform and possible Facebook. Will MS and FB traffic always have priority over everyone else? I just don't trust this whole endeavor because I really don't trust either of these two companies anymore.
Re:Privacy Concern (Score:5, Funny)
...I really don't trust either of these two companies anymore.
They were trustworthy once?
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There are probably only 2 or 4 working fibers in the cable, due to amplifier space and power limitations. That's 80 or 160 OTU4s per pair, which is pretty easy to do with modern equipment.
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That was my first thought as well, however they already have control of your data on both ends (and blatantly violate your privacy) so this is no new issue. I tend to agree that this is at least partly about avoiding NSA surveillance, or at least, putting a toll booth on the surveillance. But the prime motivator no doubt is cost: why pay a premium to a carrier? Unless the carrier can somehow do the job more cost efficiently, a distinct possibility.
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There's also more than a few TLA's in Virginia. Coincidence? I think not.
I suppose there are, but TPC is in New Jersey, and it's a TLA too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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More pairs = more power required for repeaters.
There was a pretty good article explaining all this on Ars yesterday.
http://arstechnica.com/informa... [arstechnica.com]
Ulterior motive? (Score:1)
This is so people will have the bandwidth to (unwittingly) download the bloated Windows 10.
British spying (Score:2)
They fail at blocking ad blockers (Score:2)
The "Adblock Warning Removal List [adblockplus.org]" fixes this. It should be used by anyone with adblock+.
You're welcome.
They want to own the Internet (Score:2)
Stop using Facebook and Microsoft products.
Specifically (Score:2)
>" it will connect the United States to Europe. More specifically, it will connect the State of Virginia to the country of Spain"
And even MORE specifically, it will connect the city of Virginia Beach in the *Commonwealth* of Virginia to the City of Bilbao in the province of Biscay in the country of Spain :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Virginia Beach (Score:2)
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It's also not far from the datacenters in the DC metro area, in particular in the Ashburn, Virginia area, a few hundred miles to the northeast of Virginia Beach. Basically Virginia Beach is the closest place to land cables to the DC area.
Less about reliability and more about control (Score:2)
I find it very coincidental that Ars Technica just had a very well done article on the underseas cable managed by TGN..which is already pretty effing reliable.
Perhaps this is the very beginning of the privatization of the internet "tubes" and wrestle control of the data away from governments.
Article Text (Score:2)
Facebook and Microsoft are laying a massive cable across the middle of the Atlantic.
Dubbed MAREA—Spanish for “tide”—this giant underwater cable will stretch from Virginia to Bilbao, Spain, shuttling digital data across 6,600 kilometers of ocean. Providing up to 160 terabits per second of bandwidth—about 16 million times the bandwidth of your home Internet connection—it will allow the two tech titans to more efficiently move enormous amounts of information between the many
But still cant provide good internet (Score:1)